The Villains of Gotham
by Ink Parallax
Summary: Brianna Clark is a foul-mouthed sports column writer for the Gotham Gazette. When she finally gets a big break she's pretty sure her life is about to turn around. The only problem is that it's turned to the dark side. She finds herself digging up old secrets better left buried and encountering those who are better left un-encountered; The Villains of Gotham. CraneXOC JokerXOC


_**Sing a song of sixpence, a pocketful of rye.**_

* * *

" _There are many villains in Gotham. On every street, around every corner. From the East End to City Hall. The goal of every Gotham citizen should be to unveil them all. To be like our one shining hero in the city, Batman. Calling all citizens of Gotham-"_

"No." Backspace.

" _Calling_ everyone _in Gotham."_

"No. That's shit." Backspace.

" _Everyone in Gotham, band together to-"_

Brianna sighed and thrust a strand of brown hair away from her face, leaning back in her chair. She swivled away from her computer and stood up, stretching out her back and began to make her way to the water cooler. She needed a drink.

Brianna was a writer. She wrote for the Gotham Gazette, but usually only off-beat sports piece's and half of that time she got everything wrong and no-one gave a damn. She wanted to get a real scoop, and she needed to prove to her editor and chief that she could handle it.

So far, everything she had tried to write was trash.

Brianna Clark was unsatisfied. And not just with her writing.

She was currently living her life off of a measly paycheck handed to her every two weeks for doing a job she had once thought she would love doing. She could still remember the bright eyed girl, fresh out of college who thought she would run the Gotham Gazette and live in a penthouse surrounded by chocolate fountains and beautiful men.

That girl was fucking wrong.

Instead, Brianna was paid very little, lived in a shitty apartment and her closest relationship was with the Buy Your Own Boyfriend that she kept in her top drawer. She had assumed things would go a little better when she had met handsome, perfect, kind Yuki Nekozawa.

He was a Japanese-American who resided high up on the ladder of the Gotham Gazette. He knew the ins and the outs of the entire place. When she first joined the newspaper, he had been the kindest to her, and she had fallen head-over-heels.

That was over a year ago.

She had never gotten up the courage to talk to him, let alone ask him out, and eventually he climbed the ladder and she was left in the gutter. Still, she had clung to some kind of hope that he would be a shining beacon in her train-wreck of a life.

That is, until Kendall Glenn moved into the office. She was perky, blond, and as stupid as a block of wood. She thought she was everything. To Brianna Clark, she was nothing but a pair of boobs. She was sure that was just about what everyone who ever met her thought about her, too. Besides her parents. They probably thought she was a very, very disappointing pair of boobs.

Kendall had taken an immediate liking to Yuki, and with those long legs and smooth skin how could he _not_ notice her? Brianna couldn't help but take it personally. Kendall was everything that Brianna was not.

Then Kendall got the column Brianna had been gunning for for months. Brianna was certain it was because she looked like a living Barbie Doll.

 _She should be a hooker, not a fucking columnist._

Brianna snapped out of her thoughts. The workpeople around her bustled, conversing quickly and loudly about the news in Gotham. There was another bombing. The Joker had gone missing again. New crazies were popping up everywhere.

And she was writing about _sports._

She stopped short as she came around the corner. Kendall and Yuki were chatting idly at the water-cooler. Kendall, with her bleach blonde hair and white- _white_ smile. Yuki with his elegant figure and broad shoulders, his dreamy eyes and long piano-fingers. Yuki smiled politely as Kendall swept her hair over her shoulder, and she glanced over to see Brianna. A snarky smile spread across her painted lips, and she turned away, as if snubbing her.

Brianna moved closer, an annoyed look on her face.

"And that's when I ended up totally taking off all my clothes!" Kendall's shrill laugh pierced Brianna's ears. She glanced at the bimbo's outfit. Her shirt was cut too low, and her skirt was too short. The stupid blonde was probably freezing her boobs off, with the temperature outside cooling rapidly and the repair men refusing to yet get the fucking heater finished. Like she would care. Brianna was sure she liked the longing stares of the men in the office.

"Oh, yeah?" Yuki smiled politely, allowing her to go on. He was too nice to simply tell the slut to back off.

Brianna liked to think that she was friends with Yuki. Hell, everyone liked to think that they were friends with Yuki. He was just one of those people.

Brianna pushed past Kendall to grab a paper cup.

"Hey, Brianna."

She turned to find Yuki smiling at her, and Kendall put her hands on her hips, smiling with a saccharine smile. Too sweet.

" _Hey_ ," Kendall trilled, her words coming across whiny and girlish. "Are you going out with everyone tomorrow?"

"What?" Brianna turned back to the water-cooler, filling up her paper cup to hide the scowl on her face.

"Yeah! We're going out to get some drinks, have some _fun_. You know what that is, right?"

Brianna rolled her eyes. When she turned back around, she had forced a flat look on her face. _Behave,_ she told herself.

"Yes, I know what fun is," she snipped back. Her voice was a little harder than she intended. Kendall rolled her eyes. How old was this girl? She was acting like a snotty teenager.

"You fooled me."

"A whole bunch of people from the office are going. It's going to be a good time," Yuki cut in. He had a kind smile on his face. Brianna felt herself soften.

"I'll think about it." Brianna gulped down the water quickly and crumpled up the cup, tossing it in the trash.

"We'll see you there!" Kendall called as Brianna retreated to her cubicle.

 _Yeah, right._

She sat back at her desk, glaring at her computer screen. _This is garbage._ Frustrated, she deleted the whole thing. She retyped again and again. She had finished her article hours ago. Writing about sports sucked, but it sure was easy. Usually she filled her time doing op-ed pieces, or playing Solitaire. She wanted to get out of the point-based Hell-hole that was the unread sports section of the Gotham Gazette.

There had been thousands of articles on Batman. It wasn't impression. Annoyed, she glared up at the glaring office lights. The grey ceiling tiles were chipping away, and she could see a dark hole into the ceiling surrounded by a brown water stain. It looked good on the outside, but even this place was a shit-hole.

Brianna narrowed her eyes. Suddenly, she smirked.

Yeah, a lot of people on the writing team for the Gotham Gazette were definitely pro-Batman. But what if she did something a little different? Something a little dangerous. All the best hitting reporters in the world knew you had to get your hands a little dirty to dig up some dirt.

What if she wrote about Gotham's crazy villains? What if she wrote _against_ Batman?

It was exactly what she needed. She poured out all of her negative energy on the Batman. She liked him as well as the next guy. He helped up the city and beat up all the criminals, but she just the same as everyone else that he brought out the worst in Gotham all the same. His presence in Gotham has changed everything. A lot of people on the streets wanted him dead, and a lot of those same people read the newspapers.

If he disappeared, surely there would an influx of criminals. She didn't mention that part in her article.

The hours passed quickly. Brianna could admit that she spent most of her time sitting there, annoyance on her face thinking about the way Kendall looked at Yuki, _like he was a piece of meat_. Her muse wasn't completely with her. It hadn't been in a long time.

Finally she hit the period key for the last time.

Her eyes slid over the article. She grimaced. This late at night she couldn't possibly write anything better, so she edited it to the best of her ability and set it to print two. One for her, and one for her editor. She saved it and stood to stretch.

As she stepped out of her cube she was greeted with silence. A frown formed on her face. She had worked for so long that everyone else had left. She grumbled to herself and made her way to the printer room, in no special hurry to get there. When she did, her article hadn't even finished printing yet.

She hung her head, tapped her foot and crossed her arms. She sighed. She blew a raspberry.

"Fucking slow goddamn printer," she growled. Finally, the printer was done sputtering and shaking and she grabbed the papers.

She quickly looked over them. She furrowed her brow. These weren't hers—

"Oh, hey. I thought I was the only one left here."

The sound of his cool, relaxed laugh made her freeze in place. Her shoulders stiffened, and her heart seemed to stop. Slowly, Brianna turned. Standing there, as if sent by heaven at the end of a Hell of a day, was Yuki. He smiled at her and she felt her heart jump back to life and begin working double-time.

"Working hard or hardly working—Brianna, right?" He laughed. Brianna's breath caught as he said her name. Was he singing? He couldn't possible be singing. Why would he be singing?

She looked around, her messy brown hair falling in front of her face, half expecting Kendall to squeeze out of the fax machine and laugh her bubbly-boob laugh. Just thinking about her made her wince.

"That was a bad joke, wasn't it?" Yuki cringed.

"No! No, it was funny," Brianna laughed awkwardly. She opened her mouth to continue, but decided against making a fool of herself. "This is yours." She sighed, shoving the papers toward him. She was annoyed at her attitude. She was acting like a school-girl.

He took the papers gingerly and gave her a small smile as she looked away. She jumped when the printer behind sputtered back to life. She cursed her pink cheeks underneath her breath, closing her eyes tightly. When she opened them she realized he was just staring at her. She was making a complete fool of herself. Her ears burning, she quickly turned around, struggling to get her rapidly beating heart under her breath. He probably thought she was an idiot compared to Kendall the life-size Malibu Barbie.

She rolled her eyes at her own stupidity.

"So, are you really going to go out with us tomorrow?"

Brianna blinked. He still hadn't left? She glanced over at him.

"Well, I don't know. The bar isn't really my scene."

' _Isn't really my_ scene _!?' Are you fucking kidding me?_

"Oh, that's too bad. I was really hoping to see you there."

Brianna stiffened and looked him in the eyes, trying to decide if he was mocking her or not. He seemed genuine. It was a strangely pleasant surprise.

"I-I just mean," _fuck, did I just stutter?_ "I don't really go out that often."

Yuki shrugged. "It might be a nice change of place. You never know, you may meet someone you really like."

" _I already have, you idiot._ "I don't know about that." Brianna rubbed her arm. The printer still wasn't done coughing out her paper. She was imprisoned here by the one thing that would save her. How ironic was that?

"Well, just think about it, ok?" He flashed her a dazzling smile, shocking her stiff. She watched with wide eyes as he walked away.

"Yeah. Right." She blinked. Did he say he was hoping to see her there? Did he mean _himself_ when he said she might meet someone she really liked? She leaned against the wall, her head spinning. She felt a stupid grin spreading across her face. _Yuki_ wanted to see her there. That was obvious.

Finally. It seemed like life was maybe going her way.

That is, until she woke up the next morning.

She groggily opened her eyes, rubbing them with the heel of her hand. She yawned and stared up at her ceiling. It was blurry as Hell. She couldn't see dogshit in the morning.

Even without her glasses she knew it was covered in cracks, and there was a mysterious dark spot in the corner she suspected was mold. She could hear the person above her peeing, for God's sake. She grumbled to herself, before she realized that something was wrong. The person above her was never up before her, not ever.

Her head shot to the side and her eyes widened, taking it in. Then she leapt out of bed at speeds that would have surprised her, were she not so infuriated.

"Fucking shit alarm clock!" She shrieked as she tried to make herself look as decent as possible. She raced around her apartment, jumping into a pair of pants she was pretty sure she wore the day before yesterday, but she didn't care. Her job was on the damn line.

Brianna tore a brush through her messy, dull brown hair and, in a sense of hurry, poked herself in the eye trying to get her contacts in.

"Screw it!" She grabbed an old pair of glasses and abandoned the mess she made for later that night. She ran out of her apartment, papers fluttering out of her bag as she went. She gave it no attention, stuffing the rest of the pages that her desperately trying to escape back into her briefcase.

She made it into the parking lot, stumbling across the pavement as she tried to run and strap her heels at the same time. She caught a heel in a pot-hole and swore, promising herself that it would be ugly nurse shoes from now on, no exceptions. She threw her stuff into her car, paying no heed to the fact that she would have to pick it up later, and jumped into the driver's seat. Jamming a key into the ignition, she turned it.

The car sputtered, then stopped. Sputtered, then stopped again.

Brianna screamed in rage.

"You will start, you _goddamn_ piece of _shit_ , or so help me I will _rip_ you _limb_ from greasy _fucking limb_ and sell you for parts!"

As if frightened, the car jumped to life. She grinned a nasty grin that was without any happiness at her success and sped out of the parking lot.

She ran two red lights and clipped a corner, but she didn't't care. She wasn't going to get a ticket, not in this town. The cops were busy dealing with bigger criminals than those who ran a bloody red light in an intersection with barely and traffic.

When she made it into the office, she was practically crushing her teeth into her gums. She shot into a parking space, almost hitting the car in front of her, and grabbed her folders before rushing inside.

When she stepped into the office, she realized immediately that all eyes were on her. Brianna froze, took a deep breath and steeled herself. She was late; big fucking deal. She kept her head high and walked through the office, ignoring the looks. At least, until Kendall walked past her, chatting amiably with Yuki.

Brianna stumbled, breaking her cool resolve. She almost fell flat on her face before she caught herself on someone's desk. She froze, glancing sideways at the rather bulky man who was sitting there. He stared at her for a long moment, his eyes a strange forest green and Brianna had to double check herself.

Had she seen this man before?

She blinked.

Of course she did. He worked in her office.

Brianna stood quickly and smoothe down her shirt, and swiftly came face-to-face with another one of her co-workers.

"The boss wants to see you in his office," he said, smirking sourly at her. "He's been asking for you all morning." With that he walked away, sashaying across the office. Brianna came close to following him and ripping his pretty little perm right out of his head. Swiftly, she got herself and made her way to the door marked 'Editor and Chief; Mark Richards.'

 _This is it. I'm going to be jobless and living in the Narrows,_ she thought, clenching her fist. _Trying to make ends meet and only meeting the end of some rapists mea-_

She pushed open the door and was greeted by the strong smell of coffee and printer ink, both things she had never really enjoyed the smell of. She didn't understand why Richards could stand it twenty-four-seven. Then again, he _reeked_ of it. He probably loved it.

"Clark!" He barked. "You're late!" Brianna opened her mouth to make an excuse, but she should have known better than that. "Nevermind, shut the door and get your ass in here."

Brianna flinched and shut the door before stepping in and sitting down in the chair in front of him. He looked at her, his eyes accented darkly by his large eyebrows and Neanderthal forehead. He always seemed to be glaring at people. He was much too gruff to be placed in an office building. Brianna had always thought he would be much better suited in a construction company somewhere, or as a professional wrestler. They'd call him The Cave Man.

She couldn't deny that he was good at his job, however. Despite how hard it was to admit, he was a genius of a man when it came to what The People wanted to hear. He was often spitting about how the rest of his crew was made up of incompetent fools and he could run the 'Whole Damn Gazette!' if he wanted to. The truth was, he couldn't do that. He wasn't fucking Batman.

She paused, taking a couple seconds to register what he had just said before knitting her brows together, frowning.

"Wait, 'Nevermind?' What's going on?"

"If you would get here when you're supposed to and not waste my time you would know by now, so just shut up and listen," he snapped. He glared at her as he lounged in his seat. Not leaving her time to say anything, even if she wanted to, he continued. "I got your entry last night. Thought it was pretty good. So I sent it up."

Brianna's eyes widened. He… sent it up? The corners of her mouth twitched, and she felt the beginnings of a smile. That was a big thing—to have the articles sent to their higher-ups was _huge._ The people that ran the paper were said to be snobby, and that they ran more than just the paper. Brianna figured maybe they had some right. They worked a lot on the media, so they had news stations and some other stuff like that running through Gotham.

"It may be too soon to tell, but I think they're going to be impressed, kid. If they like it, they'll want to put your work on the cover. The thing is, this thing on it's own isn't gonna cover it. You're gonna need a little more than that to get yourself in the big leagues. Can you handle some dirty work?"

Brianna stared. _Dirty work?_

"I said, can you handle that?" He barked. Brianna jumped.

"Y-yes, I think so."

"Well? Get digging. You're gonna need some serious facts to make this break, but I know you've got the right stuff." Richards crossed his arms. "Did you hear me? Get out of my office!"

Brianna yelped and jumped out of her seat.

"R-right, thank you! Thank you so much, you won't regret this, I swear!" She laughed and he rolled his eyes. She grinned like an idiot, and quickly left his office.

"And close the door behind you!"

She couldn't get that stupid smile off of her face. This was her chance! She was going to make the front page! She felt like she could fly.

She looked out at all of the people in the office, those who stared at her, and she found Kendall in the small mass of bustling people. Her nose twitched and her eyes narrowed. She was better than that no-good Barbie-bitch after all. She had the front page staring her in the face, while the blonde idiot was still on thin-ice with, what? Some lame column?

And even better—it was fucking Friday.

Yeah. Life was hella _good._

* * *

 ** _Authors Note: Just so you are aware, there is an older version of this. I suggest not reading it if you want to be surprised by what's coming up. I'm re-writing the entire series and finishing it._**

 _ **I DO NOT advocate for the vilifying of people with mental health disorders.**_ _**Everything in this story is fiction and should be taken with a grain of salt. People with schizophrenia, disassociative identity disorder or any other mental health disorder are NOT inherently evil or more likely to be criminals. While characters in my stories will exhibit similar symptoms, consider them fantasy.**_

 _ **Going forward, this story will have heavy themes about such disorders and will include things that should NOT be taken away from here. Keep that in mind.**_

 _ **Now that the heavy stuff is out of the way, thank you for reading! And please enjoy the rest of the series. ^.^**_


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